The Skoll Foundation will be visible as the Sundance Film Festival in a big way this year.  First and foremost, a Skoll supported film - the first under our Stories of Change partnership with the Sundance Institute - will premier at the festival. To Catch A Dollar tells the story of Muhammad Yunus, the legendary founder of Grameen Bank in Bangladesh, opening Grameen America to help tackle poverty in the U.S.  (I got to check out an advance copy of the film, and it’s a great story.)  There will also be a press conference to talk about To Catch A Dollar and the Stories of Change partnership with Mohammad Yunus, Skoll CEO Sally Osberg, and Sundance Institute director Cara Mertes, taking place on January 24.

In addition, Sally Osberg, the Foundation’s CEO, will be moderating a panel at Sundance with Muhammad Yunus and two other social change legends:  Geoffrey Canada of the Harlem Childrens’ Zone and Lester Brown of the Earth Policy Institute.  They also feature in documentary films at Sundance this year, the former in Waiting for Superman and the latter in Climate Refugees.   That should be a great discussion on how you effectively tackle seemingly overwhelming challenges like poverty, education and climate and make real forward progress.

Finally, as part of the Skoll/Sundance partnership, the two organizations will hold a convening of Skoll social entrepreneurs and filmmakers to explore ways to tell compelling stories around social entrepreneurs.  2009 Skoll social entrepreneurs Munqeth Mehyar of EcoPeace/Friends of the Earth Middle East and Martin van Hildebrand of Gaia Amazonas, 2006 Skoll social entrepreneur Quratal Ain Bakhteari of IDSP in Pakistan, and 2005 Skoll awardee Bunker Roy of Barefoot College in India will participate.

The Sundance partnership is a big component of the Skoll Foundation’s efforts to promote the success of  social entrepreneurs worldwide by telling their stories effectively.  In addition to the Yunus film, there are nine more documentaries of social entrepreneurs in the works, ranging from an architect working on solar powered floating schools in Bangladesh to Kenyans using soap opera to bridge ethnic tensions. You can read about these other films on the Stories of Change site.